Civitas report calls for rethink of parishes
by Madeline Davies, Church Times:
FURTHER “disempowerment” of parishes by the National Church Institutions should be challenged by the Ecclesiastical Committee, a new report from the think tank Civitas suggests.
Drawing substantially on criticisms offered by the Save the Parish movement, the report Restoring the Value of Parishes: The foundations of welfare, community and spiritual belonging in England argues that parishes have been deprived of power and assets, and are now “subject to the diocese and the executive power of the Archbishops’ Council”. It gives as an example the 1976 Endowment and Glebe Measure, which provided for the transfer of glebe land from parishes to the diocese for the benefit of diocesan stipends funds (News, 19 November 1976).
The Measure aimed to address inequalities in deployment and payment of clergy. Other factors included a drive to stop developers from making unscrupulous deals with PCCs, and a desire to manage land more strategically at diocesan level with a view to maximising returns. Among the recommendations put forward in the new report is a suggestion that the management of diocesan stipends funds be handed over to the Church Commissioners’ investment arm, with the “enhanced income” distributed back to dioceses in proportion to the value of their DSF.
Calling for a “rethink” of parish share, the report concludes that “the most effective way for dioceses to help parishes would be to reduce numbers of administrative staff.” Save the Parish has calculated that, based on the combined expenditure figures of the 42 dioceses, 21 per cent goes towards “diocesan support, training and administration”. It is estimated that reducing the current number of diocesan staff by even one quarter could pay for 1000 new stipendiary priests in parishes.
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